


…in Crimson (until we two are one)

by dame_ordsmeden



Series: My love walks... [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Freeform, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki is trying to sort himself out, Nightmares, Odin's A+ Parenting, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sif is frustrated, description of torture, songfic (sorta), trigger warning: panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1394203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dame_ordsmeden/pseuds/dame_ordsmeden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 'Allfather' rescinds his planned punishments for those who've committed treasonous acts. </p>
<p>One of those who was to be punished does not return to Asgard.</p>
<p>The fallen prince decides he must know why...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "...There are messy shades of crimson haunting us..."

**Author's Note:**

> The last part of this series left off inside the events of T:TDW; we pick back up a few months after them. It probably could be said now that this is canon-divergent... (thank you, 'Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D.')
> 
> This piece of the series is _still_ in progress (oyyy), but I decided it was about time to start posting some of it. Hopefully, I'll have it finished before I catch up post-wise...
> 
> Chapter title is taken from a random, interesting quote:  
> “This is not a white and black business we are in. There are messy shades of crimson haunting us in everything we do.” ― Michelle M. Pillow, The Jaded Hunter

 

 

 

It feels _good_ to walk.

 

After so much time in that small cell; then a few months in the guise of an old, less-than-steady man – it feels good to return to my own gait. My own economy of motion.

So I truly do not mind the few days spent hiking on Vanaheim, from the terminus of a shadow-path to Hogun’s hall. The solitude is welcome; and, well, if any were to witness me doing so and judge it a gesture of humility? To the better, I suppose. The Realms now know I live – none would be surprised to see me. Carefully planted whisper-seeds have sprouted and are fruiting well; the only vague certainty is this: the fallen prince experienced a ‘miraculous’ (what a _useful_ Midgardian term) recovery on the black rocks of Svartalfheim. Weakened, he stumbled through a ‘thin place’ between the Realms (an after-effect of the Alignment) and found himself in a remote forest of Alfheim. There, he convalesced… and a week or so ago, he journeyed back to Asgard with a party of Álfar traders, upon learning of what had transpired since Thor believed him dead.

 

(And Heimdall? He fixed me with a stare no less piercing than when the Allfather released him from custody - almost as if he _suspected_ … but no.)

 

None sought me out on ‘arrival’, and certainly there was no ‘hue and cry’ for me to take up the throne. Not that I _could_ , still stripped of my title. As much damage as I undid, that is a restoration that only could come from Thor himself. And even though the Council that now rules in his stead firmly believes his abdication is a fleeting diversion, I am not so sure… _The Council - the last great bit of influence my mother had exerted was seeing to its creation. Perhaps something in her weavings prompted it; perhaps it was just her savvy mind that saw how far we’d all fall._

At _least_ I was there to make certain the _whole_ council could be present – it took commuting Heimdall‘s sentence and rescinding the Allfather’s idiotic sanctions against Sif and two-thirds of the Warriors Three to even make that a possibility. Despite the rumblings of a few minor members (who were summarily replaced), Volstagg and Fandral returned almost immediately from Vanaheim, where they and Sif had taken ‘refuge’ with Hogun.

But Sif? Sif did not return, and that troubled me. Maybe more than the dreams of… well, somewhat more than the taxing usage of my seiðr ( _it had cost me, somewhat, to keep him hidden away - even though he slept. Sleeps. More than likely will not ever wake again…_) to maintain all the necessary illusions. Certainly more than the constant annoyance that ‘ruling’ turned out to be.

Unfulfilling. _That’s_ the word. Ruling as Odin was _unfulfilling_. It left me empty, passionless. _Hollow_ , in a way not dissimilar from how I felt when being brought back from Midgard, the influence of the sceptre’s energy beaten out of me ( _a feeling that was suspiciously absent after saving her, as the dreams were for a while… but she’d been so violently angry at seeing me out of my cell – threatening me; and then I’d had to go and ‘die’ again…_).

Complicated… but nothing with Sif would ever be simple. Could ever be simple.

And so, here I am. My first action after shedding the Allfather’s ‘skin’ - a trip to Vanaheim. Because I must know what reason could possibly keep the staunchest defender of Asgard away from her duty and home.

But before asking her? I must - to borrow from Midgardian parlance – ‘make nice’ with Hogun.

 

*

 

His ‘hall’ is indeed small (by Aesir standards), but it makes for a sense of… _comfort_ , not oppressiveness. It is also one of the few ‘permanent’ structures that serve as personal residences – most choose to live in dwellings that share a great deal of commonality with Midgardian ‘yurts’ (though certainly they are more elegant than ones I have experienced on that realm).

The wards I felt at the border of his property prove their worth, as he is waiting at the bottom of a short stair that extends from the deck surrounding the nearly-round stone building. His arms are crossed, his stare heavy and steady. I drop the hood of my cloak and see his shoulders stiffen minutely – but he does not blink.

“Good Hogun,” I intone with a deep bow of my head, stopping a few strides short of his position, “do I have your hospitality?”

“You are still standing, seiðrmaðr. So _yes_ , you have permission to be here. Even though I am not why you’ve come.”

Answers – flippant, condescending, contrite – swirl to the tip of my tongue. But only honesty will do here, unshaded honesty. Before I can sift out a reply he shifts his stance, bringing his left arm to rest on the stair railing and gesturing to the steps with the other. _That_ hand then comes to rest on the head of his mace, at his hip.

I know not to refuse such an invitation. Doffing my shouldered pack, I cross the remaining distance and seat myself, looking up at him. An angry voice in my head rails at this… _show of obeisance in the face of a threat, who is he? Possessed of no seiðr, you could, you should…_

“I… yes. That is the truth of it.” I stammer this out, trying to silence my mind. No easy feat. “How fares the Lady Sif?”

“You will have to ask her yourself, Loki.” No titles for me, no honorific. Just my name – _‘as it should be’_ , I tell the beast my pride has become. Or what has replaced my pride.

“Do I have your permission to do so?”

A slow, slight smile is his reply. The hand that had been resting on the mace-head is offered now, to help me up. I accept it without hesitation. ( _‘Needy,’ whispers a voice that I know is inside my head; that wants me to believe it comes from just behind my ear. ‘needy, broken, pathetic – you thrill at any touch; as Odin they didn’t touch, isthatwhyyougaveitup…’_) I manage a weak smile back, quickly looking to my pack and slipping it back on under my cloak.

“My permission, you have. Hers, I cannot vouch for. If you have need of a horse, I can-”

“I thank you for that, but no. It… feels _good_ to walk.” There’s a flash of a question in his eyes, but it passes without comment. And how could I hope to explain said horse returning rider-less because my screaming night-terrors frighten it badly enough that it breaks free and runs?

“She is half a day’s ride, north-west. The old roundhouse.”

“The one you let me stay in some twenty summers ago?”

“The same.”

“By your leave, then? Good Hogun, I thank you.” I bow my head deeply again, and on looking up I see what I want to believe is a grudging respect in his eyes.

“Seiðrmaðr.” He nods, sharply. “It is not mine to say the wholeness of this – but a part, I will give you. The Lady? Does not remain here entirely by her own choice.”

“But the Allfather – he rescinded-” Hogun’s glare, heavy as Mjölnir, silences me.

“And that is why I said ‘entirely’. She knows she may return.”

 

*

A half-day’s ride at my pace on foot becomes a bit more than a full-day’s walk, including the few hours of sleep I managed wrapped in my cloak. The sleep was rough, at best – but the pleasure of waking in the crisp pre-dawn air made it worthwhile. It’s the closest I’ve felt to how it was to wake in my own chambers, windows left open overnight to the first chill of autumn. Of course, _now_ I know why that was such a pleasure… but somehow, my enjoyment does not dim.

Short-cutting through forest, (to save time over the trail that winds from building to building) it still takes the better part of the morning to cross two ridges that are between. Cresting the second one, the sound of axe blows reverberates up from the old roundhouse. Before I can see her, my mind paints the picture – working a rhythm of a sort on the well-seasoned log, each blow landing clean and true. The occasional pause to tear a partially split piece by hand; followed by the dry, ringing thunk of its joining the steadily growing pile of firewood. She’ll pause; swipe sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, tug her hair up tighter in that high tail she wears it in. A roll of her shoulders and neck, a shake of her arms, and the axe will be back in hand. The arc of the blade’s fall is a thing of divine grace, the fluid strength of her arms executing a perfect control. And oh, that blade is sharp - honed as keen as her glaive. At night, she will sit with a whetstone, working that axe with what looks like a lover’s caress. She will find invisible burrs at the edge and smooth them away, pass after pass. Perhaps tomorrow she will hunt, or forage for pine nuts and herbs to dry, or spend the day working through her forms – wishing for a worthy sparring partner… (‘ _Which is certainly not you,’ says the damnable voice in my head. ‘Unworthy, ungrateful, broken-minded, needy, wrathful, wrong, wrong, wrong…’_ _comes the litany I am used to now_.) The litany that snaps off, abruptly, as she comes into view…

Her walk is slow, and even at this distance - I can see she is limping, favoring her left leg. The limp is measured and her pace unhurried, indicative of this being not a new injury. No. _No_. _I left no trace of my seiðr in that wound. She knows I live; and there was no charm to sustain, and healing – healing doesn’t _fade _. It’s a permanent act. I was wounded, not dead. Not dead…_

As the roundhouse door shuts behind her, I close my eyes, needing to isolate the bubble of panic rising in my chest. I _detach_ inside my mind, studying it. It is illogical, I tell myself. Holds no power, is not even _real_.

Some days, I’m acutely aware my mind has gotten worse, progressively. Some mornings in the palace (either in my cell, or Odin’s sound-shielded quarters) I was painfully certain both physically – because of the rawness in my throat – and figuratively that the muzzle had less to do with concerns about the power I am capable of wielding with words alone, and more to do with ensuring others could sleep. Could function. Because when that panic consumes me? I scream. Perhaps, it is to make up for all the screaming I did not allow myself as I fought to not break. But I broke anyway, gave into them, into _him_. Was it before fighting bare-handed? After they stripped my seiðr? Which time? I don’t… I cannot be certain now. I don’t think I ever was.

 

 

 


	2. "...The rim of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sif opens the door, both physically and metaphorically. She finds some of Loki’s insecurities on display; he finds the reason for her current predicament. And they start – tentatively – to find each other, once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After three false starts on the first chapter, this one came together surprisingly easily… Eh, when Loki decides he likes to talk, the words just flow. :-) 
> 
> Title taken from another random quote. The full quote is this:  
> "You will hear thunder and remember me,   
> And think: she wanted storms. The rim   
> Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,   
> And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.” ― Anna Akhmatova

 

 

The roundhouse is as I remember it: clad in thick rough-hewn timber inside and out; not strictly meant to be occupied year-round - but the winters here are milder than those on Asgard, and the hearth-fire is usually enough to keep warm by. Walking up the path to the door, I picture the layout in my mind… essentially an open floor space, with a large stone fireplace in the middle. A stone bread-oven attached to it on the right side; a bay of windows on the outer wall to the left, facing south-west with a table and chairs under them. On the far side of the fireplace, there’s a bed to the right of the windows - canopied and soft. A small, but well-appointed bathing chamber partitioned off by heavy drapes to the right of _that_ , with a copper tub clad in stone and fed with water from heated springs underground. Smaller, high-set windows next, over a sink and then a desk / table / what-have-you work area. A set of floor-to-ceiling shelving, and then – back to the door.

Which I am about to knock on.

Softly, at first – without response. A heavier knock earns me a frustrated huff and a barked-out “Fandral, for the last time – I am not coming ba…” Falling silent as she wrenches the door open, her jaw snaps shut. Sif just looks at me, her gaze cutting even truer than her blade for a second. There’s a battle behind her eyes ( _do I dare to interrupt, to speak first_ )…

“Lady Sif? Do I… have your hospitality?”

“My lord, I-”

Bowing my head, I solemnly interject - “You needs not refer to me so, Lady. I am neither Lord nor Prince.” And then, looking up with a half-smile and lightness - “Nor do you still have need to kill me, as there was no betrayal of my brother to precipitate that. I come to you as a humble seiðrmaðr, seeking a warm hearth for the evening.”

“Do _not_ jest with me, Loki. I will not grieve you a fourth time.” Before I can question her count ( _fourth? I ‘died’ but twice…_ ), she pulls back and gestures with her right hand that I should enter. I step in, dropping my pack and unclasping my cloak. She closes the door behind me, leaving her left palm resting flat against it.

“You look as though you’d like to hit me.” I offer, trying again for some levity.

“I would. So I’m going to absent myself. You’re welcome to stay; there’s bread in the oven.” And with that, she opens the door again and walks out.

 

 

*

 

 

Not one to take anything for granted, I soak in a hot bath; eyes closed and listening to her continue splitting wood. The water eases the not-unwelcome soreness from muscles that have sadly grown unused to so much activity.

I stop listening; stop soaking, however, when it becomes clear her pace with the axe-blows has taken on some frenzy. Anger I anticipated; but not something this _raw_ , nor her feeling she mustneeds redirect it. Propriety will keep her from asking me to leave, but that does not mean she won’t make this uncomfortable. Still, her leg… probably something I can heal, again…

Dry, and clad in a fresh linen tunic and pants, I retrieve some hard cheese from my pack and a bottle of wine from the shelving. The bread smells incredibly tantalizing - rich and yeasty. I’m pulling it from the oven when Sif comes back in, propping the axe beside the door. She tries ( _and fails_ ) to hide the limp while crossing to the table and chairs in front of the window.

“How long has it bothered you, Lady?” I ask, while slicing off a few slabs of cheese and warm bread.

“How long has _what_ bothered me?” she sighs, as if this conversation wearies her already. “Your absence? Your death? Your-”

“Your leg.” I turn in time to see her rubbing at her left thigh while nimble fingers unlace her right boot.

“Have you been _watching_ me?” She yanks the boot off and flings it toward the door.

“No, Lady. I only saw you today, as I crested the ridge.” I cannot meet her eyes; the fire in that amber has flared too hot. Setting a platter with the bread and cheese on the table, I reach for the wine. She pulls the bottle away, leaning over to set it on the windowsill and putting herself squarely between.

“I’ve no desire to entertain a drunken seiðrmaðr. Why did you come?”

I know the words are meant to sting, to caution me. But I’m no longer locked in a cell and sleep comes easier – even if it doesn’t _stay_ \- so I shrug it off. “I wanted to know why you hadn’t returned with Fandral and Volstagg to take up your place on the Council. How long, Lady?”

“ _Stop_. Just stop. With the honorific. I, I cannot do this.”

“Cannot do what?”

“Play these courtly games of yours. I’ve no taste for it.”

“I do not play; I offer you respect. Deserved respect, accordingly paid.” I drop to my knees, bowing my head. She shifts, as if to get up – so without thinking, I grasp her still-booted left ankle, loosely. Still unwilling ( _unable, more like…_ ) to look her in the eye, “may I?” slips quietly from my lips. Her posture relaxes, so I set to loosening the laces. Cupping her heel with one hand and calf with the other, I lift gently and glance to the side where her fingers are curled around the chair’s arm. They tense up, so I angle the lift - bending her knee and not her hip. Heel slipping free, the boot drops to the floor. Keeping the firm, warm muscle cradled in my palm, I set the boot aside. Small twitches - from either exertion or the chill of my touch - fire randomly under her skin and through the thin leather covering her leg. I sit back on my heels; begin working loose the buttons above her ankle that snug her breeches tight inside boots. She doesn’t flinch at this either, so I tentatively start rubbing small circles with my thumb on the inside of her calf. Sif breathes; a deep calm inhalation and exhalation through her nose. Reading that as consent, I continue massaging and kneading her calf. Working my way closer to her knee, I lift her foot, setting the sole on my thigh… the _warmth, radiating into my skin… any other time, this would’ve sent a rush to my groin and had me working at… but no. This moment, this moment the contact is both a hotter burn than any torture I endured, and the sweetest balm ever applied…_

“Why does it matter so to you, the _when_ of it?”

“Please, Sif.”

“Fine. It was… ( _Does she pause to weigh her words? To figure the shape of a lie?_ ) …shortly after your ‘liberation’, during the Alignment. The scar just… seized up. Healers here have given me what they could, and it has settled to this dull but constant level of pain.”

I can feel the blood draining from my face with her words; am glad that my hands are occupied so that they do not tremble. Dipping my head further down to hide my reaction in shadow, I lean in to work the last knots from just below her knee. And then… a brush of fingertips across my temple. Tamping down the urge to lean into her touch, however faint it was - I look up.

Painted by the fading golden-cream light of sunset, she stares down at me intently. _So beautiful, always and ever so beautiful… she deserves…_

“Loki?”

I blink; once, twice, searching her face for malice, for anger, for the _loathing that should be there, for so unworthy a creature as you are…_

“Loki? You didn’t ask me ‘what scar’. You know. _Norns_ , you know… you _were_ there. You, you weren’t a dream…” she breathes the last, balanced between incredulity and what sounds like sadness. Resting my forehead on her knee, the scent of leather and her clean sweat and _Sif_ fills my senses. “…but you never came back. I missed you, you know.” The last is a whisper I’m not certain I’m meant to hear as she turns to face the sunset. But oh, I do. These are the words my weak heart wishes had come before mine when she levelled her sword at my throat. Words she _should not_ utter now, to the madness I carry. Words I’d fall on a blade to hear again, if I were a _deserving_ creature. _I could be, again, deserving. I could. She, she always understood…_ “I wondered why you never came.”

False mirth colours the words that come: “Well, there was that tricky incarceration I was dealing-”

“To my _dreams_ , Loki. You never came back.”

“I am sorry, for that.” Slipping my right hand up along the outside of her thigh, there’s the oddest sensation; her skin is cool to the touch through the leather. Much cooler than the rest of her leg - and if my own hand finds it cool, I wonder how _cold_ it must feel to her. I chance it; let a wisp of seiðr ghost from my fingertips, tracing the edges of the scar…

Sif more than relaxes; she _slumps_ down into the seat. Gasping, her left hand finds my hair and gently twists, pressing my cheek to her knee. It’s… _it’s such an intimate gesture. I want to… to shove away, to put my lips to her skin, to stop the way my heart lurches…_

“ _Norns_ , do that again. _Please_ …” she mumbles, catching me further off-guard as her fingers flex, gentle scrape of nails firing off jolts of pleasure across my scalp and down my spine.

Somehow I manage a coherent thought. “I take it… that didn’t hurt?”

“No, it…” Suddenly, she’s lifting her hand from my hair and gripping the chair-arm again, so tightly the wood protests with a small creak. “Hela’s _bones_ \- that was… what it…” The sole of her foot tenses up, her knee trembles. After sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, she grits out - “…third shelf. Glass jar.  Please.”

Pain. She’s in a disturbing amount of pain. Easing her foot to the floor, I scramble back over to the shelves. She grunts, shifts… a buckle unclasps. There are more expressions of pain followed by the sound of leather peeling from skin as I search for and locate the jar. Turning back to her, time stills for a heartbeat: the sunset sky gone crimson and magenta and lilac, sweat beading on her forehead. A droplet falling from her jaw to soak into her embroidered collar, another trailing behind it…

She nods to the jar, and I avert my eyes as I hand it to her. _So fierce a woman should not suffer the pride-fall of crying in front of…_

A small, tired laugh, only tinged with the slightest bitterness snaps me back to this moment. “Nothing you’ve not seen before. Now, my fingers will be less than dexterous in a few minutes, once this salve soaks in. Help me?” She extends her right leg, angling the buttons above her ankle there towards me. Shrugging, I take her ankle and deftly pop them loose, then tug the breeches away. She sets the uncorked jar on the table, and I pick it and the lid up, aroma so thick I can taste it… mint, camphor, cedar, willow, clove – and not a _trace_ of seiðr. “Sif? This is just a palliative; does next to nothing, certainly cannot heal you.”

There is less grit, more relaxed jaw in her reply as she vigorously rubs the thick salve into her skin. “I’m _aware_ of that. But none of the healers here could. Fandral had said he’d ask Eir to visit me-”

“Why? Why not just _go back_?”

“And have all of Asgard know I’m… damaged? Unable to fight? Oh, yes. _That_ would go so wonderfully, don’t you think?”

“So, the healers here are incapable of some simple seiðr-”

“No, they are not. They could not _use_ their own magik. It only brought more pain.”

“But I did not… oh. Ohh. Blood. It’s, it’s… yes.”

“You are… not making sense.”

“No, it’s… Sif, I can fix this. It’s, it’s in the blood, darling. I just have to unweave…” My mind is washed over with the scent of the herbs, and little islands of thought are surfacing from it. A chain, like stepping-stones across a garden pond. Yes. “Mother… she, when you were so near death? She shared her blood with you. She must not have set a perpetuation on it… or, or some part of my own is tangled in there, yes, that would make _sense_ , the way you responded... ”

_Sif watches him, feeling the gentle warming of the salve work into the cold muscle. Her heartbeat feels awkward in her chest, like it cannot quite settle. His eyes are_ alight _; positively full of… how he once was, years ago. Like watching a memory play out in front of her, there is his particular way of focusing - thumbnail to teeth as he unceremoniously drops into the chair next to her, one leg pulled up to his chest. How should she feel, right now? She knew he’d come back to Asgard, alive… news such as that travels on fleet hooves, to Hogun – and he shares what he receives, while respecting her wish to remain secluded. That he lived probably ought to have surprised her more than it did, but she’d barely had time or energy to grieve him yet again… How should she feel? He appears unexpectedly, and he is more and less himself than he was in the cell. She is not frightened, certainly. Guarded? Yes. Angry? Somewhat. But even that emotion poured out of her like so much sweat with each swing of the axe; unable to retain a grip on her throat or its flare in her eyes. And she’d missed him. Hela’s bones, she had missed him._

_He has looked at her already the way a starving man looks at the prey he hopes to fell – the hunger is evident; behind the fear, the_ certainty _that she is a mirage – uncapturable. She remembers all too well the look of that hunger, on his face in the cell when she was sure all he needed was to be touched. Held. Reassured. He’d shown her then, and again now, that he has no reservations when it comes to touching her of his own volition. But somehow, the reverse is not allowed? Not welcomed, at the least – or welcomed, but painful to his heart? She shakes her head at the thought, at the warmth of the room, at the fact she’s let her eyes fall closed… weightless, near-dreaming energy seems to soak into her mind… weightless…_

Sif jolts awake in my arms, left hand fisting in the blanket I’ve wrapped around her bare legs. She tenses as I settle her on the bed, trying not to jostle her thigh. “Sorry,” I whisper across her hair.

“No, it’s not that…”

_Oh. It’s the contact. That you’ve done this at all. Fool._

“You just surprised me, is all. I thought you wouldn’t…” I feel her eyes following me, exhausted as she is, as I pull a bed-roll from my pack and spread it in front of the fire. “Loki, you could-”

“I’m afraid I have become a poor bedmate, Sif.” It comes out colder than I’d intended; she turns on her side and pulls the blanket up. I stoke the fire, wrap the sliced bread and cheese in cloth and tuck it in the larder next to the sink. By the time I’m ready to lie down her breathing is deep and even. Sif sleeps _small_ ; trained by long years of precarious situations – cold caves, narrow ledges, thick tree branches, small campaign cots. I cannot recall the last time I watched her sleeping. Within the last few years, certainly… Well, within the last decade? Surely it hasn’t been longer than that…

‘Blood magik,’ I mutter to myself, stifling a yawn. How simple this should be to fix; to restore her leg - just a matter of diving in, finding what’s gotten tangled in the scar, and releasing it. It must be something mother left behind, some bit of her that came with the blood and stayed – and has now faded. Sif wouldn’t have noticed right away; perhaps just a twinge or a little soreness, mistaken for the way a scar will feel tight. But after, once her seiðr dissipated completely… No, no more thought. Sleep should be allowed to sink her demanding claws into me. The hearth is comfortably warm, glowing softly in the gathering darkness. Another yawn comes, and… hmm. I cannot seal her off from sound should I wake _poorly_ … too tired to think, I hastily trace a flickering green sigil across my throat and let the quiet of the night pull me down.

 

 


	3. "… pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet…"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first two lines pretty much sum up the chapter - Loki sleeps and dreams. And the dream isn't a pleasant one...
> 
> (Possible trigger warning: please heed the beginning notes, dear readers.)
> 
> Chapter title taken from (yet another) random quote:  
> “Now that I have opened that bottle of memories they're pouring out like wine, crimson and bittersweet.” ― Ellen Hopkins, 'Impulse'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loki's nightmare herein induces a panic attack. If this is something that might affect you negatively, dear reader - please bypass this chapter. 
> 
> I'll summarize in a note at the beginning of the next chapter (which will have its own set of warnings, *sigh*...)

 

 

{Loki _sleeps…_

 

…Loki _dreams…_ }

 

*

 

“Loki.”

In the guise of the Einherjar, I nod hesitantly. Deference, the man would show deference to his king – and for some reason, it is not difficult to react that way; to shrink a bit at the spearhead-gaze of his eye.

The Allfather levers himself up from the throne, tamping Gungnir down once - hard. All present in the grand hall stop, bowing their heads. I steal one glance up to see him laboring down the steps.

“Come,” he commands, catching me with his fierce eye again. Clapping fist to heart, I fall into step behind him. Off to the side and behind the throne, the door to his private study swings open at the touch of Gungnir. A small part of my mind mislikes this, but I feel so detached from fear, from _all_ of it that I follow even as the door closes behind me with a rush of air. A shaft of dim light crosses the lone table, falling short of the bookshelves at the far wall.

Still feigning deference, I drop to one knee without looking up. I hear the Allfather seat himself heavily in his favourite chair: plain, rough-carved wood; a generations-old tribute from Midgard. It matches nothing in the room, nothing in this _realm_. A memory forces its way up: her voice, laughingly suggesting he make _it_ his throne. Golden-bright light dances in her hair. They both look _so_ young…

“Do you _think_ …” he taps Gungnir lightly against the chair’s arm, “I cannot sense my own work anymore?”

I look up, and despite my self-control some of the fear that shows is genuine. “My liege, I-”

“ _Enough_ , Loki.” I let the illusion fade away; but burgeoning anger sparks an idea - what’s revealed is my bluing skin. He cocks his head, as if to study me better with that damnably piercing eye. Tap… tap… tap… the shaft of Gungnir against the chair-arm. He sighs deeply, pauses as if to speak – then _doesn’t_. One slow blink… tap tap tap… and then the resounding ‘clang’ of the butt-end hitting the floor, hard. ( _Sometimes, I’ve wondered if this is why there are no wooden floors in the palace…_ )

“I had believed you were ever your mother’s child. But now, I know different. You are simply your own.”

A bitter smile frames my reply. “Well, one – we’ll never really know the truth of that. And two - only _now_?” His regard neither shifts nor softens. I can feel the frost soaking through the leather under my knee, cold seeping into the stone floor… _if I shifted back now, it would hurt – but within this skin, it is nothing – a degree of cold against a degree of colder. How long, how long can I hold this form, when I’m not stressed? A subtly throbbing heat coming from the marrow of my bones suggests I’m soon to find out…_

“Is this to be my legacy? One son driven mad by excess ambition and the other possessed of none?” The words are barbed, the tone like soured wine.

“Will you call now for your Einherjar legions; clap me in chains again?” I spit back, unwilling to answer to that. He laughs then, a barking haughty roughness that is completely without mirth. Below the tumult of thoughts washing my mind, I pluck at my seiðr – wondering if I have recovered strength enough to vanish when he _does_ summon them.

“If you are dead, what need have I to imprison you? No, Loki – I am done. With the lot of you.” The words drip with disdain and frustration. “I have lost the only thing that truly mattered-”

“What, your _control_ over us? Because otherwise, you just spoke of my mother as a  _ _‘thing’_.”_

“Twist my words however you choose,” comes with a dismissive wave of his empty hand. “It matters not. The last sleep hunts me and this time I go willingly. Frigga saw to it ( _oh, and now he will not call her my mother, even_ ) that plans were laid. Thor will return, in time – when he tires of his frail little mortal. Until then, the Council will rule in his stead.” ( _Dismissed to the last. I am nothing to him. If I donned the Einherjar guise again, would he even notice?_)

A blur of motion stuns me, my head flinching away even as my hand reflexively shoots out. A slap of cool metal humming with power meets my palm. The blue bleeds away, receding under my sleeve; and I stand, hurriedly.

“Deliver it to safe-keeping. Or take it for yourself.”

“I know you will not believe me, but I want it not. What I wanted – all I wanted – was to be equal to your golden child. The… _cruelties_ visited upon me? Distorted that want-”

“Cruelties you set in motion-”

“Do you still believe so? That I, I wanted for this? You _broke_ me. That day… your two simple words  broke me! What had I left, to live for? Not your son, _never_ your son - just a _monster_ , denied even the courtesy of knowing what I was! Did you, did you ever _listen_ to what Mother told you? What, what _happened_ to me, after? What they _did_ to me? What _HE_ did to me? Did you ever come to see the scars I carry? Or, or could you not _concern_ yourself with the monster _YOU_ created, _YOU_ locked away!”

Steps I don’t remember taking have left me looming over him, Gungnir clutched so tightly my fingers ache. There’s a roar in my head that isn’t the rushing of blood – no, not _now not now…_

 

 

( _and that is when I know it is a dream…_ )

 

_His hand flies to my throat, clamping down tight and all I can see is the fire, the **fire** of his eye, the endless depth of his pupil, it is the blackness come to me again and I am falling and I know I know what waits at the end of the falling and I cannot steel myself for the impact, the bone-shattering graceless stone-breaking **stop** … and the mad eyes, boring into mine, into mind…_

 

_the breath_

 

_the breath I cannot take (ribs and limbs so many splinters of bone)_

 

_cannot take_

 

_(sipping) tiny sharp shards of air_

 

_not enough to make… cannot… make… a… sound_

 

 

*

 

 

A noise I cannot place wakes me. Strangled bursts of air, as if someone is being repeatedly choked and then allowed to breathe – but even that breathing sounds _wrong_ ; quick gasps, not deep enough to be panting…

Throwing myself out of bed, I find him - flat on his back, body rigid, chest movements much too rapid and shallow to get a _real_ breath. Everything I learned from Eir’s dealings with the warriors like Kjetil rushes to mind - soft voice, gentle touch, soothe but give space.

“Loki? Listen to me. You’re dreaming. It’s only a dream. You have to breathe. Please. Breathe. Wake up. It’s a dream.”

His unfocused eyes snap open; pupils tiny islands on grey-green seas in the dim glow of the fire. “It’s a dream,” I repeat, crouching next to his side. Ignoring the protesting tightness in my thigh, I reach to lay a hand on his shoulder…

Everything happens at once. His pupils blow _wide_ as he sits up, scrabbling backward toward the fireplace. Kicking away his blanket; one hand twisting against the collar of his shirt and throat, eyes darting around but not fixing on anything… and still, those _sounds_ coming from his open mouth. As if he’s being throttled, or lost his… _oh, oh blessed Mother._

_He’s screaming. But there’s no voice._

“Loki. Look at me, please. It was a dream. A dream. You are safe, you are here with me. Breathe. You need to breathe.” His eyes are wild with fear; whole body trembling and drawn tight as a bowstring. “Please do not make yourself pass out. Look at me. I’m here.” The hand that had been at his shirt is now dangerously clutching his throat, tight enough to surely bruise. I reach for it, and receive an elbow to my palm and another slide backward from him. _Too close, much too close to the fire…_ “The fireplace is behind you. Please, Loki, come forward. I do not want you to burn yourself. You’re safe here, with me.”

Suspicion and terror war openly in his eyes now. A log cracks and shifts, sending a small barrage of embers his way. One lands on his bared foot and he _hisses_ , launching forward as if to bowl his way past me. I latch on to his waist, wresting his hand away from his throat and pulling him against my chest. My back slams against the end of the bed, jarring both of us and…

… his eyes lock on mine, finally _seeing_ me…

… and curling his face into my chest, he _sobs_. Silent, body-wracking sobs tear through him, shaking both of us brutally. Slowly, gingerly, I slip one hand to his back. He stills, holding his breath and flinches _hard_ , trying to dislodge it from his shoulder blade. “You need this,” I murmur. “To be touched. I could see it even in the cell.” No rubbing or kneading – just the steady, light press of my palm to his sweat-dampened shirt. “You _need_ this. So let me, love.” He starts to shake his head ‘no’, but even that small act is more control than he can manage – the shaking devolves to trembling, to more tears. The things I want to do – press my lips to his temple, smooth hair away from his face – to soothe him are, I’m certain, more than he will allow. So I resign myself to this: holding him with one arm, for as long as it takes. As long as he needs…

There’s a flicker of green light at his fingers where they curl against his chest; I barely see it through the commingled curtain of our hair. A ragged sigh; and then his strained, rasping voice – “What I need… is not what I deserve.”

“Just for tonight, just until dawn comes - let me be the arbiter of what you deserve. Sleep now, if you are able. I am not going anywhere, nor am I letting you go.” Ignoring the complaints of fatigued muscles, I lean my head back against the bed and close my eyes.

 

 

 


	4. “…we'll mellow crimson wine's bitter cup…”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after Loki’s nightmare-induced panic attack: it starts in a way that looks promising, then quickly becomes... complicated.
> 
> Also: I promised a summary of the last chapter for those who may have skipped over it due to the trigger warnings, so here it is: Loki dreams himself back in the moments after he presented himself as Einherjar to Odin. The dream shifts at the end, becomes the moments just before he ‘landed’ and was taken by Thanos / the Other. Sif wakes, hearing his screams that have no sound (because of the charm he set on his own throat). She pulls him out of the nightmare and subsequent panic attack, and holds him (because it is what he needs) while he sobs and tells her what he needs is not what he deserves.
> 
> Possible trigger warning: Loki makes an oblique reference to infanticide. Please read the opening notes, dear readers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING: Loki makes an oblique reference to (what I stress is) perceived infanticide (remember the words of Mama Frigga, at the end of the previous work).   
> If this is at all triggering for you – either gloss over the bits immediately after Loki says “The indirect and overdue answer to your question…” or, wait and there will be a summary posted at the beginning of the next chapter. 
> 
> Chapter title taken from yet another random quote:  
> “…With rose water we'll mellow crimson wine's bitter cup;  
> we'll sugar the fire to sweeten smoke's emanation…” – Hafiz

 

 

 

_Warmth._

 

_A steady heartbeat in my ear, steady breaths causing the slight lift and fall under my cheek. Such warmth, as though I sleep in a shaft of Sunna’s sweet light… Do not wake me. Do not shatter this dream… Nuzzling closer and stretching my arm, my hand meets bare skin (hip, thigh, I know these curves) while my lips and nose brush well-worn linen (do not, do not open your eyes)… there’s an arm draped around me; a hand slipping down my back, resting at my waist, fingertips seeking skin… licking my lips, pressing a kiss to breastbone and there’s a contented hum felt as much as heard… kneading the hip beneath my palm (when did I?), calluses sweep under my shirt, tracing my ribs…_

_Desire catches fire…_

_Another kiss placed, a whimper, grip tightens over_ a knob of bone - a rib re-healed too many times…

“Lo… Loki?” ( _uncertainty, don’t open my_ )

“Loki.” (insistent… _is it worth the fight?_ )

( _Sif if I open my eyes this will be_ )

“Loki, is this-”

I cut her off by sinuously slipping out of her arms and sitting up, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes. _Damn, damn, and damn – not a dream… blood is pooling in places it shouldn’t…_ Blinking fast, I’m relieved to find pre-dawn light barely filtering in through the high window… oh. Oh. The night rushes back behind each close of lids; the _dream_ , the panic, the _screams that weren’t screams_ … “I’m sorry, Sif, for last night. I should have warned you. You deserve better than-”

“ _Why_ are you so certain you know what I deserve? You had a nightmare; I gave you the comfort you’ve been needing and _sorely_ lacking. ‘Deserving’ is a concept that does not apply. And if you continue to insist it does, well… you _saved_ me. You _deserve_ , at least, my gratitude. You _have_ my gratitude, and so much more than that.” Her eyes issue the softest challenge, the warmest threat. _I could, I could crawl back into those arms_ …

My laugh comes out bitter and half-swallowed. “You, my dear, most _certainly_ deserve better than me. You do not _know_ what I’ve done. What’s _been_ done. You miss the man I was, before everything-”

“I miss _you_. I _love_ you-”

I put one hand up, palm out. Rake the other through my hair. Stare at the floor, cataloguing the whorls of the woodgrain. “You love a memory. You _miss_ a memory.”

“Then make me understand. How you are not you. Convince me.” She starts to get up, tucking her right leg back for leverage. Jumping to my feet, I offer her my hand. She huffs, blowing a lock of hair from her eyes. “Do you not…” as I pull her up, “This. _This_ is what I cannot; Loki, _why_? You’re so kind, so gentle with me, and I don’t…” She sits down on the end of the bed, searching my face for answers. Reasons.

Pausing to tuck the blanket around her bare legs again, I know the voice is there; the one telling me I’m broken, damaged… worthless. A killer, a gleeful _murderer_ , a foul monster - a shell of Aesir skin surrounding something vile, violent, and dark. That voice has me leaning down, hands to the bed alongside her hips, making a cage of my arms. Staring. “I killed. At the behest of a madman. I _slaughtered_ , for want of a crown.”

“Your _want_ was to escape from those who tormented you. And you did not care how it happened.” And still, there is no malice in her eyes. No hatred. No pity. “I spoke with your brother, with Eir. They both came to the same conclusion, roughly – you were so hurt, so _lost_ … And this violence you show me now? It was far more convincing in the cell. Rage at me if you must, but it will not deter me from loving you. I have grieved you too much, too often to not _revel_ in your living.” Before I can react, her hand cups my cheek…

_I could deserve her again. That voice is not who I am. I could…_

Letting my eyes close, I just… breathe. Her thumb twitches and I swallow hard and then it is the pull of gravity, the attraction of orbits, my lips falling to hers. One of us whimpers, maybe both of us do. It doesn’t matter. Her hand trembles; my knees tremble, and I fall to them - breaking the kiss before it moves beyond chaste. My head in her lap, arms wrapped around her… why does she feel like a safe harbor when I am the most dangerous beacon in all the Realms; a tethered mind that could lead destruction to this very doorstep?

“Is all of… all of what happened to you, when you fell - is that why you do not like to be touched?” Her voice sounds so timid I can scarcely believe it is Sif who speaks.

Something that is both a laugh and a choked sob – though my eyes are dry – escapes. “Let us please put that weary _lie_ to rest – I did not fall. I _let go_. Everything was lost to me. My life – my _entire life_ – was Odin’s lie. Nothing could or can rectify that. I had arrived at the conclusion that if I obliterated Jötunheim, none would ever have to know the truth – what I am… yet that also was not to be so. He denied me, in the end. There was nothing…

I hope that you can understand – my captors presented themselves in all manner of forms, some _exceedingly_ familiar, to do me harm; images from, from _His_ first pass through my memories. When I… landed.” I cannot help but shiver; the dream still so fresh. “The attempts were clumsy, though. Each of you hurt me in ways you  wouldn’t, so I knew it for what it was - a glamour, cast over his warriors.”

“I… levelled my blade – I’m so _sorry_ -”

“No need to apologise. That is something you would do – and in that moment it was completely deserved.” I feel her head shake ‘no’, but do not look up to see whether it is in sorrow or disagreement.

“As it was, that tack was abandoned soon enough; glamour dropped and I was allowed to _see_ … and I felt weaker still, for it. Not able, not even able to fight back against such low creatures…” Her hand has found my shoulder; the touch is an anchor, a tether to here and now. ‘ _You do not deserve, you are not worthy…_ ’ is a whisper – only a whisper.

“It was when He… when he got _smarter_ about it, when he’d rooted through more of – _taken_ more of my mind… I, I think… a thousand, thousand times I watched you being injured. Killed. Honestly, I’m no longer completely sure what happened there and  then, as opposed to what my dreams have created since...”

“I’d like to see them try.” She almost succeeds in covering the hint of tremor in both her hand and voice at that. _My brave, beloved Sif._

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“I wish-”

“Sif? Don’t. Do not waste energy on wishing this could be undone, or that you could have stopped it. _I_ wasted my heart on wishing for death, not willing to see that the weave of my life says otherwise.”

“Are you done?” she asks, gently. I nod, cheek brushing the soft fabric. “Then, Loki, you will hear what I was going to say. I _wish_ that I could draw off the pains and fears that pursue you. I _wish_ that you would, at the least, continue to share them with me because I gladly take some of the weight of them as my own. You have done much wrong – but you have _been_ wronged in greater measure.”

“Not greater, my Lady - far from. I am irredeemable. I seek neither forgiveness nor redemption. What I do seek? Is to protect, to the best of my ability, those I care about who still draw breath.” There is a sudden and fierce want, with these words, to pull her closer. A want born of greed and selfishness that I do not heed. And what I do not say, in an attempt to shelter her, is that I _did_ see; I _was_ shown that. Of her. Over and again when I’d been given time to heal so as not to die. Cruel and slow, or painless and quick, or by degrees, or already done. My beloved: dead before me, dying before me ( _at my own hand, even_ ). Glamours upon glamours. And it never, _not once_ lost its sting. Power. Hold over me. As for the threat the Other levelled, time and again: ‘He will make you long for something as sweet as pain’? I know one of the shapes that would take, if carried out. It would be her. They – no, He – would find her.

“The indirect and overdue answer to your question is yes – what happened has made me… reticent to being touched. You seem to have forgotten that before all this I was not overly desirous of physical contact… save from you, and a very few others. But now… I, I no longer deserve your kindness, your touch – no matter how much I crave it.”

“ _Why_?” she whispers, head bent close to mine.

“There is too much innocent blood on my hands, staining my skin. Too much. Mortal, and Aesir… and Jötunn. I told you already, lo… there were innocents. No more than a babe…” It’s too much. Pulling away, I stand up and rub my face roughly, rake fingers through my hair. “Now, I need you to be well-rested, so no splitting wood today. And you should eat something, as well. I’ll need a few hours of research-”

“Loki?”

“-to assure I’ve got the proper runes in mind, for your leg. Have you a store of dragon’s blood? Lavender? Ah, no matter, I’m sure I’ve brought-”

“Will you just stop, for a minute?”

“Sif. _This_ is what I am capable of, right now. I can heal you, so that you are free to return to Asgard – and the Council – without fear of damage to your reputation. _This_ is what I can do for you. Let me. Just… let me do this.” Throwing open my pack, I sit down on the floor cross-legged and bend over it, pulling out a notebook that _should_ have the references I need. The mortar and pestle, the small box with sachets of herbs and minerals for making pigments and inks… so focused, I do not hear her cross the room; do not know she’s there until her hand is in front of me. Holding… _where in Hela’s name did she? The impassive mask slides over my face, unbidden._

“I thought you might want this, as well. You’ll need my skin clean of the salve, yes? I’ll go bathe.” Her limping footfalls retreat; followed by the sound of the drapes closing behind her, and then running water.

My dagger. She’s handed me my own dagger; the last time I saw this… Thor. He must have… sentimental, damnable fool. Keeping what I injured him with, as some sort of _reward_ to be returned to me – but too emotional to hold it himself. Slipping it from the sheath, I rub my thumb across the flat of the blade. Still slick; and the edge ever-sharp with the enchantments lain in at its forging. It plays out in my mind, some overwrought moment between them; his extraction of a promise to return it to me once I’ve _proved_ myself somehow.

She believes I deserve it already.

 

 

 


	5. “ When darkness lays her crimson cloak / Your lamps will call, call me home…”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is (explanation, and pain, and) healing; and then there is (realization and) healing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, first things first: summary of last chapter, for those of you who might have passed it over due to trigger warnings: Loki wakes in Sif’s arms, in a very pleasant fashion. ;-) (much to his chagrin). He pulls away emotionally, and she calls him on his self-deprecation. One chaste kiss - and a whole lot of Loki explaining what happened to him - ensues. He ends the discussion when it overwhelms him, and starts planning how to heal Sif.   
> Oh, and she returns his dagger. :-)
> 
> Yay! No trigger warnings for this chapter! Unless sexytimes is a trigger. If it is, you’re on your own, dear reader. ;-) 
> 
> Chapter title taken from yet another random quote:  
> “When darkness lays her crimson cloak  
> Your lamps will call, call me home.   
> And so it's there my homage's due  
> Clutchéd by the still of the night  
> Now I feel, feel you move  
> And Every breath, breath is full” – Loreena McKennitt ‘The Mystic's Dream’

 

 

 

The sound of Sif padding out of the bath breaks my concentration momentarily; the sight is mundane, yes, but the familiarity of it stings: thick robe cinched tight at her waist, wet ends of her hair dripping over one shoulder, shapely calves exposed. Shaking my head once, I turn back to the more important work at hand. While searching through my notes I’ve ground some garnet flakes, willow bark, dried lawsonia leaves and lavender blossoms, and a scant bit of dragon’s blood resin to a very fine powder… Yes, I _was_ correct at my first thought about the binds I’d need to use. It’s a relief, a confirmation that my mind is not so wrecked that I cannot recall some of the earliest, simplest binds my mother… _why, why did I ever deny her?_

She pulls last night’s bread and cheese from the larder, picking at a slice of each while I trace the chosen bindrunes a few times in the air, as practice. I feel her eyes on me, wonder what she’s thinking. No matter. I will do this, and then absent myself – to Alfheim maybe; or even some remote place on Midgard. Because I’ve proven now that it is much too difficult, too painful to remain here with her. She will not give up on me, that much is clear – though she should. Better to make this easier for her.

“Are you ready?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that – as you’re the one performing magik?” she replies, with a soft smile.

“Courtesy still matters, my lady. Are you more comfortable on your side, or on your back?”

“Whichever you require. Neither is any more or less comfortable, currently.”

Glancing out the window, I mark by the shadows that it is near to mid-morning. I pick up the mortar, pestle, and a soft-bristled artist’s brush in one hand and gesture to the bed with the other. “If you do not mind - your back, then? I may have to manipulate your hip a bit, but I’ll try not to. And unfortunately, this will likely hurt a bit worse before it gets better. I’ll have to do something similar to what happened last night… but I think I can temper the after-effects.”

“Whatever is needed, love.” She settles on top of the blankets; pulls her robe open and away revealing a taut, toned thigh. The wound healed so well that the scar’s outline has no more than the faintest demarcation – but the veins are more visible under the skin than they should be, evidencing the coldness I felt. “Please do not be offended by my question – why all the preparation? I am used to you - or any healer, for that matter – simply pouring their seiðr into a wound.”

“None taken. That is, in fact, the reason for all this. Honestly, when I healed you? It was… _instinctual_. On a level beyond consciousness, both above and below it – and in the process, some bit of my mother’s seiðr must have gotten tangled up. After… after her death, it remained in a way it shouldn’t have. ( _Norns, will it ever be easier to speak of her?_ ) Or, it has faded and is trying to take some bit of… well, some bit of _you_ with it. All that needs doing is to separate you from it, and then set a new bind to your scar that makes it wholly your own.” I’ve crossed to the sink and added a bit of warm water to the powdery mixture while explaining, and am now settled on the bed next to her leg. “The last bit I require is a few drops of your blood. Would you hold this?” Handing her the mortar, I pull the sheathed dagger from my pocket. She offers her left hand to me, and fluidly I slip the blade out. Pricking one finger with the tip; three by three by three the droplets fall, thinning the liquid ever so slightly. I swipe my thumb across the still welling blood, the kiss of seiðr to her skin both familiar and bittersweet. “Shall we?”

She swallows audibly, nodding. Leaning back against the stacked pillows and blowing out a hard breath, she nods again. I stir the blood in with the brush, loading it well, and then begin the laborious process of outlining her scar.

 

 

*

 

 

Somewhere close to midday, I finish the outline. Once she adjusted to the sensation of the warm, thick ‘paint’ ( _that is to say, once she stopped wanting to twitch and shift at what she called the ‘tickling’ of the brush_ ) meeting her skin, she relaxed enough to doze lightly. I wonder how much sleep she has lost in the last few months; wonder how it must feel for one as healthy as she to deal with constant pain… soon enough, it will be naught but an unpleasant memory for her.

The bindrunes flow effortlessly from my hand; contained neatly inside the outlining, swirling with an energy all their own. They _hum_ to me, asking to be activated, _ignited_. For a moment I consider waking her - then decide against it. Relaxed is better, for what I must do next. Setting the nearly empty mortar and brush on the bedside table next to my knife, I take a few deep, centering breaths and shift position, straddling her shin. Sif sighs and mumbles in her sleep, both inelegantly and endearingly. I half-expect her to swat me away _as she used to, sometimes – always less than whole-heartedly. She wanted me in her bed; wanted the pleasure we shared so richly, wanted the love we made…_ She does not stir further.

Cradling her thigh, index fingers and thumbs framing the delineation of her scar, I close my eyes… exhale… and _sink my thoughts, my mind deep – looking for that thread of golden seiðr that must be there…_

_Again._

_And again._

_And again. More power, more energy each time. Feeling as though I’m holding breath underwater longer and longer. Searching. Wisps of seiðr becoming tendrils, becoming swaths._

_It’s not there._

_No bit, no spark, not even an echo. Pulling back, biting down on my lip to keep from roaring in frustration, I nearly miss it at the edge of perception – faint, so faint it gutters like a candle-flame in a strong draft._

_Green. Pale and sickly (if seiðr could be thus), but green._

I will not think about what this means. I will not. Not now.

_Very far away (but yes, right under my palms) Sif sighs in her sleep. A sigh imbued with longing and desire and loneliness and a silver-red spark of pure want. The scent of her arousal slips and tugs, like fingers at my clothing. Norns… the leg I’m not holding on to shifts, foot brushing across mine…_

_Leaving a projection of my hands in place, I hover my left just above the binds while reaching for the brush with my right. One last tendril of seiðr snakes out from my index finger, latches on to the flickering spark, begins drawing it back… the brush-tip flitting around, connecting the binds to the border…_

I flick my gaze up, my _perception_ up, just in time to see her wake. Wide-eyed, she searches for an assurance – and just as I’m able to give her one, the pain crashes over her. Right hand balling into a fist; she pounds against the bed twice before I can catch it awkwardly with my own right, brush dropped and forgotten. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I have to focus. Just a moment more.” Head thrown back, neck straining, there is a barely perceptible dip of her chin.    

_Spark. Hits my fingertip with a jolt of emotions, her emotions; a snarl snapping under tension to become a cloud of thread-fragments. Or are they mine own? No time… to discern or think… her back is starting to arch off the bed…_

I drop her fist, press her back to the pillows with a hand to her sternum and lean close to the paint. Lips shaping the names of the binds, I blow across them. They spark subtly and then _catch_ , garnet shimmering glow pouring into her skin from the bindrunes and back out at the border. I call back the projection of my hands, and time dilates: one heartbeat, two… I feel her relax under my palm. Four heartbeats, five… still so close to her thigh, her arousal is a seiðr of its own, drawing me in. Seven heartbeats, eight… the glow fades; her hand moves toward my hair ( _the things our bodies are unwilling to unlearn_ ) and falters…

Grasping her wrist and sinking her fingers into my hair, I ghost cool breath over her now _warm_ thigh. She shivers, and then my lips find unpainted skin just above her knee. “Love…” is a murmur, tentative and soft as her touch.

_I am alive. I am alive. She is here, and her love for me is here, and I am. Alive._

Her hips buck gently against the weight of my palm slipping down her stomach ( _the things our bodies fail to forget_ ); her inner thigh under my lips is the sweetest fire I’ve ever tasted. Her whole being seems to glow, even in the full light of day – skin bright as Sunna’s rays dancing on water. Blinding – and I surrender my vision.

_I died. I died. Stopped drawing breath. Heart stopped._

Locking tears and pain behind a wall of anger, of _drive_ , I willingly lose myself in her. Fingertips painting cool stripes down the back of her thigh, I lift her knee over my shoulder. She struggles one-handed to untie the sash holding her robe closed as I attend to her other leg, starting at the knee again and kissing down, down, down; feeling her shiver and hearing a frustrated whimper. I lay a hand over hers, pulling it away from the knot and towards my head. Hesitation holds her for a second, but _damn me, if this is to be the last time, I will grant myself – us - this one bit of pleasure._

_I am alive. I died. She is here. Alive. She is whole. I died._

The first taste, first slip of my tongue across her slick folds is… _divine_. Concepts gleaned from the Hawk’s mind shove their way to the fore: communion, mortals receiving the ‘body’ of the son of their god as a wafer on the tongue. This then, this is _my_ communion. My goddess’ body on my tongue is benediction and salvation and sanctity and everything, _every thing_ I crave and deny myself and need and do not deserve. Ohh, she is, she is… _whimpering at every lap, every suckle; fingers tugging and nails scraping and urging and yes. Yes. Nimble, nimble – gentle teeth and firm tongue and she moans, moans and it is the sweetest sound I never thought to hear in this life again. Her breathing goes ragged; close, so close to coming undone and I want to delay it, play her like a lyre… but… her pleasure… her hands, speaking ‘now, please now’ to the nape of my neck, to the…_

_… scarred skin of my back, just under the collar. Her touch is searing; a phoenix-feather, a jet of dragon-flame. Hand sweeping deeper, skimming the tip of the newest scar…_

_… and I growl. Thrust my tongue and she shudders… something that is my name, and the word ‘love’, and a sigh all in the same breathless exhalation and I cannot stop, not yet, need this, need her –_

(Need. Her.

Blessed Mother Yggðrasil, I _died_.)

_Wrapping my lips around her pearl, pulling cool air in over it with a drawn breath and then one last careful nip, tongue soothing, soothing and swirling (so like the runes from brush-tip to skin) and humming, hmm-ing because I remember what that does for her (stammering half-cogent explanation the first time I did, oh yes); taut stomach tensing, high keening music of her throat…_

I am greedy, and she is delicious, and even as she comes I do not stop. My tongue feels possessed and tireless, propelled by the emotional and physical ache ( _oh, how I…_ ) for her, for release. But her grip in my hair slackens; breathing still labored but softening. I slow, gentle… easing her down to the shelter of sleep. Sitting up and swiping my chin with the back of my hand, she catches me completely unaware – following with all her quicksilver grace, fixing me with amber-haloed pupils.

“Thank you,” she breathes, and my gaze flicks to the pronounced rise and fall of her breasts without thought. I know she sees; the corner of her lip turns up slightly. Her robe has shifted, exposing a deep vee of skin; for as long as I have known her body, she could just as well be nude before me. Her nectar going sticky on my lips, I realise my mind has gone blank.

Completely, utterly blank. And it’s _bliss_.

“What may I offer you, in return?” Her voice, deepened in afterglow, is silk and honey.

“I do not… I _want_ , I-” The desperate whine colouring my own offends every last sensibility I still possess.

“May I touch you? Here?” She gestures to her own chest. I swallow thickly and nod. “If you need to pull away, I understand. If anything I do… bothers ( _she says, but means ‘frightens’_ ) you, tell me. I will ask for permissions, love.”

_In my need, my greed, my lust, I will not say no. She thinks this to be about my fears; not that she should fear me. And I have not the focus left to tell her so. _

Her fingers make quick, light work of the lacing at the collar of my shirt; her face a study in concentration. The linen gapes open, her eyes widening for a heartbeat at the sight. We have long revered each other’s scars, but this? Feels so very foreign. Brushing my shirt aside, her hand slips in and comes to rest over my heart, above that newest scar. _As if she intuits that this is what my heart needs – to be reminded ‘I am alive’._ I find myself mirroring her, palm to the thrum of her own. Too long, it has been too long and the sensation when contrasted against our shared dream is as midsummer’s noon is to the pinprick of a single star. For a measure of breaths we simply sit, anchored to each other’s heartbeats, while I desperately ignore the aching hardness of my cock. _Somehow, somehow I cheated death. Did not meet Hela; did not fade to nothingness. I am here, now, with the woman who still - for reasons I cannot fathom - calls me ‘love’ with such an everyday tenderness. Who has seen the monstrous side of me and not run._ Opening my eyes (and not recalling when I closed them), this love of hers is writ clear in her gaze. I know it will be pointless to hide myself from her, to leave so as to spare her whatever danger might come for me.

Because she will _always_ find me.

The realization is a hammer-blow. She will always find me; there is no corner of the Realms or beyond them, now, where she would not either pursue me or summon me to her.

“Loki?” Her eyes fractionally narrow in concern; my heart rate has increased and she begins easing her hand away. Leaning forward, keeping that connection, I brush my lips across hers. “Is this?” are the only words she manages before I kiss her again, wild and full and _longing_. And then it is memory that propels us: unknotting her sash, pushing the robe from her shoulders, her fingers skimming under the edge of my shirt and nearly yanking it over my head. The swell of her breasts; the salt of her sweat on my tongue. Her fingers painting warm trails across the cool hard plane of my chest. Her lips and teeth at my throat and oh I _moan_ , a guttural harsh sound that has me finding a hand and laying it to my twitching length. She is not gentle in palming me, and I do not want it so. This is as fierce as we were, years ago, coming from the field or the training yards. This is _affirmation_. Proof of _ life._ For a second time her hands make quick work of lacings and her touch is sweetly scalding. Nipping trails across her collarbones as she moves to straddle me, she wraps one arm around my back and finds the exit-wound scar ( _I will not think, now is not the time to think_). I grip her hips to help her balance as she slowly, teasingly descends… halfway in, I snap my hips up to meet her. The ecstatic sigh that comes with her head falling back and the ‘yes’ that follows it are nearly enough to undo me, there and then.

Slowly, effortlessly, Sif rises and falls; wet and warm and undeniably _right_. “Love…” is an unfamiliar word in my mouth; it feels too full and heavy. “Ohh, love…” I try again, letting my tongue caress the ‘l’ before taking her nipple between my teeth. She clenches around me; stilling. Snarling, I grab her hips and grit out “… not going… to _last_ … if you...-”

“I know. You gave me mine. Take _yours_ , love.”

“Sif…” I hiss. Head falling back, words tumble out inelegant and raw. “I _died_. I was dead, and I do not know what-”

“I _know_ , love.” My head snaps up, vision gone too sharp. Her eyes glimmering with unshed tears, she looks down at the scar. Her hand ghosts over it. “I knew. When you pulled loose that, that bit… I felt it. But you _live_. You are _here_.” She presses down, and presses my _soul_ back together, a hand at each scar.

Yes. _Yes_ …

I am a man possessed; driving into her, inking bruises onto her hips. She catches my mouth and kisses me hard, as if by that action she could force life and love and _meaning_ back into every last cell of my body. She swallows the growl…

… my vision whites-out, spilling into her. Unsteady rhythm, loosened limbs…

… she pulls me down, tangle of legs and her head tucked under my chin. And the delicious weariness I had not thought to feel with her again in this life lulls us to a gentle sleep.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of this section of my series is in sight, dear readers - just over the horizon, maybe two more chapters. If Loki and Sif prove amenable (i.e. keep talking to me), I'll be moving on to the next section by the end of May.


	6. “…and crimson as a ruby was the heart…”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Afternoon, aftermath, afterglow… 
> 
> Loki comes to an unfortunate realization, and gives Sif an explanation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, dear readers – this is the penultimate chapter of this section of the series. It’s short-ish, and probably not my best work… but it needed out of my head. 
> 
> Title taken from a random, ‘very’ crimson quote ;-) :  
> “And the marvellous rose became crimson, like the rose of the eastern sky. Crimson was the girdle of petals, and crimson as a ruby was the heart” ― Oscar Wilde

 

 

 

Rolling over, I wake in an empty bed to the slanting of late afternoon sun, and from dreams washed in so much blood it certainly wasn’t all my own. A voice that might be mine reverberates into consciousness: _‘It’s in the blood…’_

The chill that shivers through me has naught to do with the low fire or my bared skin. _Norns, I think of everything – every possible thing but this? I am living, breathing blood magik. I walk in this skin because of the work of a certain-to-die Aesir, who is… no. He’d not, he’d have thought better. Planned better. Unless…_

Well. This presents a problem.

The chittering panicked whisper in my head grows louder, more insistent as I hastily lace my clothing and search for my boots. Sif opens the door, brace of cleaned rabbits in hand, to my shoving the mortar and pestle haphazardly into my pack.

“It has been a while since I’ve hunted. I didn’t want to wake you.” She drops the rabbits in the sink and washes her hands, her warrior’s posture returned. “Are you leaving in such a hurry for a reason I should know? My stews never offended you that much in the past…” she trails off, looking up and out the window as her shoulders drop.

“I would not have left before your return, love.” She looks down; I know it is unfocused, slow blinks of relief that I am not allowed to witness. In the span of a breath I cross the room and wrap my arms around her waist. “I’m sorry,” I say to the nape of her neck. “I’m sorry, love,” I whisper to the tender skin behind her ear. She softens against me somewhat, but her spine remains steely. “You silenced the chaos in my head,” I tell the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “I am not leaving willingly.”

She turns in my embrace; catches my chin and kisses me full and soft. “Then stay. Please. We could while away the winter – hunting, and sleeping, and…” she pauses, looking finally at my face and seeing the resolve sketched there.

“Sif, I-”

“You know, I’ve a seat on the Council. I _could_ compel you to stay.” It’s an attempt at levity, meant to veil her heart.

“But you won’t.” My words are gentle as I can sound them, hoping she will understand.

“No. But I do want you to stay.”

“Speaking of the Council – the Realm needs you, love. And Volstagg and Fandral will be glad of your return, I’m sure. Go home, Sif.”

“And you? I’ve still not been told where you’re rushing off to.” She turns back to the rabbits, starts popping joints to prep them for slicing. I take a step back to give her room as she takes up a knife. _‘Needy needy needy’_ is the whisper in my ear; my hand reflexively snaps to swat it away, meeting nothing. She does not see, thank the Norns – but even so, I smooth the gesture into something else, scratching at my scalp.

“I’ve research that needs doing.” The knife clatters against the bottom of the sink and I tense, expecting her angry turning to me, _on_ me… but she simply sighs. There is a slight shift of her jaw, words pondered and swallowed. “You have every right to be angry with me. I’ve walked into and out of your life more times than you should tolerate, my love. Hear me on this: I am _not_ leaving you. I am trying to ensure that I might _stay_ with you… if you’d have me. It… it’s the blood magik. I would prefer to believe the Allfather would not be so petty as to revoke whatever permanences he instilled, but there is no way for me to know that right now. If, if he died tomorrow, if he died in the next breath? I could cover myself with an illusion of the skin you see, the skin you _love_ , the skin that does not burn you to _touch_ – but it would be only that. An illusion. I am capable of suppressing his work, yes – but only for short spans. I have not the ability to restore what he’s done if it leaves me. I, I have to be certain that I’ll stay… when he… it would help me greatly if you’d say something, please…”

“If? You are asking me _if_ I’d have you?” She turns; stewpot in hand.

“Well… yes. Among other things…”

With deliberate silence, she hangs the stewpot on the hook at the side of the fireplace and rakes coals forward under it. _‘Stupid, foolish, needy, desperate – she will not have you, you’ve failed her over and again and she should not trust you, will not trust you; you don’t, you’re not…’_

And she looks at me, all edges and cutting away… I meet her this time; I am resolute and _let_ her, let her…

“Of course I would have you, love.” The words are plain; tinged with a shade of incredulity. “So it is settled, then. We leave on the morrow; me for home, you for…?”

“Alfheim.”

“…and you back to Alfheim.”

It must be the voices, or the emotions, or the lack of sleep – but whichever, it is the most dangerous mistake I’ve made in ages. Because I look at Sif quizzically for a beat; feel my lips start to form a question around the word ‘back’… “Yes, back to Alfheim… I hope to find answers there; if not, I will return here and scour the libraries. I do not hide myself from Heimdall – should you have need-”

“I always have ‘need’ of you, love.” She smiles, wistful. Walks over to me – _walks, not limps. I did that. I made her well_ – and takes both of my hands in hers. “But I will wait patiently at ‘home’ for your return.” She shrugs, bemused by some inner thought. “What if I told you that place - with that word ascribed to it - holds little meaning without you in it?”

“I’d say you exaggerate more than Vol- more than Fandral, love.” This show of humor; it feels safe and _right_ , even though it is all a veil.

“It is not that much an exaggeration.” she laughs, lightly. She slips one hand around my wrist; so warm, so gentle a touch. I want to lean my whole being into it, believe I can feel and memorize each ridge and whorl of her fingerprints. With my free hand I cup her cheek, draw her into a kiss…

 

*

 

The night passes too quickly; the warmth of her body a balm as we sleep with limbs entangled, bellies full of stew and bread and wine.

 

*

 

She leaves at first light, pressing a kiss to my forehead before one to my lips. She will stop to visit Hogun by the following morning; perhaps stay with him for a day before returning to Asgard. She is a body that barely contains the returned energy and strength; and my soul, my seiðr _revels_ to see her thus. As she should be.

I will leave by mid-morning; hike a half-day to the shadow-path between here and Alfheim. By nightfall here I’ll be in deep forest again, at midday. And the Álfar libraries will hold the answers I seek… because they must.

They must.

 

 

 


	7. “…and green leaves blush to crimson frangibility…”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A coda, of sorts: Loki dreams (or so it seems)…
> 
> NOTE: Potential trigger warning - Loki gets to discuss his perceived (all emphasis on the word perceived) infanticide. He is not obliquely referring to it, but not exactly graphically describing it, either. I hope this is not off-putting; this was, in the end, the only way to tell this story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter summary kinda says it all, dear readers. 
> 
> I sincerely thank you for sticking with me in this long strange trip so far. <3 I’ve come once more to the end of what is pre-written; the next in the series may take a bit of time to come – as this writer’s ‘real life’ has gotten both interesting and complicated lately. But the complications will pass, and the story will go on soon.
> 
> Chapter title is from the last of my random quotes:  
> “Back home Chinars sniff autumn breeze,  
> and green leaves blush to crimson frangibility;  
> Yet it is me here drinking coffee, thinking airplanes;” ― Ashfaq Saraf

 

 

 

Loki sleeps.

 

 

 

_Loki dreams…_

 

 

 

The scoured, dark rocks. The thin atmosphere that blurs the distant, muted starlight. The wind.

The Void. The dead, dark space, far from the Mother.

But the wind stills, and the stars snap in to sharp focus. The light is crisp, like pinholes in velvet. And then there’s a faint whisper, a warm caress ruffling hair. A rustle of leaves: living, soft, green-sounding.

“ _Mother…_ ” he whispers, voice thick with reverence as he stumbles, staggered and overwhelmed. Knees come to rest on what feels like soft sand where there should be razor-edged gravel. He keeps his gaze fixed on the starlight, nebulae of stunning color swirling into view among the stars.

“Child.” A breathy sigh of the cosmos, lingering over the ‘i’. Tears prick his eyes, well up and overflow. The voice… _he knows her voice_ … “Yes, Child. She speaks through me.” There is an echo, that his seiðr feels more than can be heard: “ _I speak through her._ ”

“M… mm… mother… I am… not…” Tears stream down his face; dripping from his jaw to what was sand beneath knees, to what is now loamy, warm soil. The rustle of leaves takes on a rhythm; it is a heartbeat, is the liquid rush of blood pulsing through veins.

“All of her ( _my_ ) children are _deserving_. All of her ( _my_ ) children are _loved_.”

His head falls forward. Even the dazzling cosmic display is not enough to hold his gaze – or it is too much.

“Child. Look to me.” It is a gentle command. He fights the sudden urge to shake his head ‘no’ ( _as he’d done when caught in some bit of juvenile trickery, burrowing his face in her skirts_ ), and does as bid. Her face. Her sweet, warm smile – that looks _not quite right_ until he realizes:

…this is her, younger than even him by _centuries_. this is her, luminous with more than her own seiðr and youth – with the seiðr that flows through the Mother’s veins.

She bends forward, swipes drying tears from his cheek with the pad of her thumb. The voices clamoring for attention in his head are summarily silenced, rendered powerless by her touch. Straightening and urging him to stand, her eyes cloud with concern - “Now child, you believe yourself unworthy. Why is that?”

She is summer-silk and spring-warmth and everything, _everything_ he never should have denied. She is mother and Mother and starlight and seiðr and breath-stealing-ly, need-blindingly _comforting_.

_She does not know? She knows, but does not believe?_ Confusion layered on confusion; more than his wrought-iron fragility can withstand. He stammers out: “What I’ve done. Innocent… I took the _life_ of-” A hard swallow flips the switch in his mind; dispassionate dissociation hammers flat the silver timbre of his voice. “He – the Other – handed me a squalling Jötunn infant. Small, and thin, and  cold. It wailed for hours… none of the ways I’d lulled Volstagg’s children would work.” Once more he feels the weight in his hands, the unblemished blue skin squirming against the wrecked, scarred surface of his own. “I was instructed to silence it, lest the Mad Titan be angered by the noise. Hours passed. Despite all my efforts, I was told I had displeased my rescuer, my _savior_ – and that unless I silenced the child, access to my seiðr would not be restored. Ever. I would spend my days a blue wretch, with the weight of an infant’s dying body and starving whimpers forever etched on my consciousness. I… I was wounded, and weak, and knew the next round of torture was only a breath-span away. I was _weak_ , and it was _wrong_. But I… I _was_ gentle. I was. I _was_ …” Passion and pain bleed back into his voice with the last words.

“Loki, child of Yggðrasil – you did no such thing. Think.” Her hand traces a complex bind in midair, trails of achingly familiar golden seiðr vibrating into and out of existence. A part of his mind tries to grasp, to commit to memory the bind; it slips away as though it was only on the periphery of his vision. The weight is still present in his hands, but the emotions of that moment: fear, revulsion, anger, desperation – are absent. “Look. Look past the veil, and what do you see?” The _thing_ in his grip – for ‘thing’ it is: insect-like grub, foodstuff of the Chitauri, squirming and sticky and bulbous and _vile_ – is not what he saw, then. His heart sighs in relief; his mind, his ever-clever mind, though, raises an objection - ‘ _what you saw or did not see matters not – your actions remain the same’_.

“Forgive yourself, child. Forgive yourself; find your grace and balance again. You did not do this thing that burdens your heart.” His hands are empty at the blink of an eye; and then hers are wrapped around them, palm to palm and the _light_ flows down her arms…

‘ _Too much, it is too much, I must pull away_ …’ he thinks; makes to yank his hands free from hers.

“Child. My child. Relax.” Her thumbs find the center of his palms, slip to the pulse-point of his wrists. Light flares; warm, iridescent, around and through. In spite of himself he _smiles_ , wants to laugh because of the bliss singing into his mind. So, so sweet and bright. His lungs, his skin, his being feels whole again.

“Thank you, Mother.” The grin reflected in her eyes is genuine and soft and full as she pulls back but not away. A sphere of swirling gold light limned in blue and the size of a marble hovers in his cupped hands. Voice cracking with restrained delight, he asks: “What is this?”

“Peace. Bliss. Healing. What you are owed, my child.” The echo has left her voice, and it startles him. Disbelief flickers in his eyes as he searches her face. “I do this with Her knowledge and Her blessing.”

“I was so wrong, and I’m sorry, mother I’m _so sorry-_ ”

“Shh. I know, as I have ever known. Your loving, fierce, delicate heart.” She lays one palm to his chest, holds the other over the sphere. “You saw and seized a path laid by your brother; a path out of your harsh punishment, out of your prison. And I know you no longer cared where that path ended, so long as it was not inside those white walls. In the end, I ensured the path would prove… possible.” His eyes widen as her hand closes over the sphere. “Your life, my son – your life was fibers, raveled. You were at a gap spanned by motes of spider-silk. You were merely strands of blood binding you to reality. You were dying. You were a shade of death.”

He realizes her hands have swapped positions – or that they were an illusion all along. Feels the static hum of her seiðr-sphere over his heart, over his _scar_. It crackles and sings…

“In that space, I _breathed_.”

Her palm presses flat…

 

 

 

_Loki dreams…_

 

 

 

Loki _sleeps…_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the lack of due diligence in my crediting, but I saw this elsewhere and cannot for the life of me remember which author used it: “Kudos are love, comments are love letters.”  
> I have been feeling your love, dear readers. And it is sooo appreciated and inspiring. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading; and for continuing on this long, strange journey Loki and Sif wanted told. Your lovely comments and kudos let me know I've not _completely_ lost my mind. :-)
> 
> Feedback of all kinds is warmly and sincerely appreciated!


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